Moments
by shushyou
Summary: "Kurt thinks he'd rather have what little of Blaine he does right now, than none of him at all."
1. Chapter 1

**Note: **So I don't really know what this is, but I spent last night writing this, because apparently fanfiction has overtaken sleep in my list of priorities. I'm not entirely sure why, either, because I'm not a writer, I'm not.  
>There's a track that accompanies this fic in my mind, but it's not a songfic, and the connection doesn't really make much sense. I've linked it in my profile, though, if you're for some bizarre reason interested.<p>

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><p>i<p>

It's late – if Kurt had to guess, he'd say about 3am, but no-one's actually keeping track. The air is full of laughter and sparks from the campfire, and his friends are sitting in deckchairs, talking lazily in their inebriation, lit only by the flicker of the flames. Kurt himself is sober, which he supposes should make him more cautious of his actions – if anyone remembers, he won't be able to pass it off as drunken folly, like they could – but he's giddy from the attention, and tired, and if he's honest with himself, more than a little bit lonely.

He's been in love with Blaine for months, of course – almost right from the start – but now his fierce belief that it's mutual has faded, and he's only _just _able to convince himself that Blaine could, maybe, almost, feel it too. He knows he's clutching at straws, but Kurt really just needs the occasional glance that he can read too much into to let himself believe that he's not alone in this, and sometimes he thinks that that belief is enough.

He's stretched out uncomfortably, his head resting on the joined armrests of his and Blaine's chairs, with the pretence of looking up at the stars – if anyone asks, which they won't. It's not entirely pretence, anyway – Kurt's always been one for romance, and being almost cuddled-up with Blaine under the stars is a moment that the poet and hopeless romantic in him will probably file away forever.

When Blaine starts lazily stroking his hair, Kurt lets himself believe that it's because Blaine loves him, and forcibly discards thoughts of excess alcohol consumption and a general affectionate nature. He sighs happily, and leans into Blaine's touch.

Half an hour later finds Kurt half asleep, with Blaine's arm around his shoulder, and his head on Blaine's chest. Blaine's still stroking his hair with his free hand, Kurt's still hunched awkwardly over the arms of their chairs (he tells himself that he's too tired to move, but he knows, really, that he's just too scared to do anything that could shatter this illusion), the fire is still crackling, and the hum of laughter still surrounds them.

Blaine gently extricates his hand from Kurt's hair, and instead brushes his fingertips against the back of Kurt's hand (which has been stroking lazy circles on Blaine's upper arm for the last who-knows-how-long). Kurt's breath hitches, but he lets himself relax into the touch; lets Blaine pick up his hand and intertwine their fingers. He watches Blaine, firelight causing his face to glow beautifully and reflecting hints of amber into those deep hazel eyes, as Blaine's thumb strokes gently over his own in the amber light.

"Oopsh," Blaine giggles, and Kurt can sort of feel his grasp on the moment slip a little bit, because the slur of Blaine's words tells him exactly what he didn't want to know; Blaine's drunk. He hums softly in reply, a request for Blaine to elaborate, because Kurt doesn't think he can form words for this anymore, and Blaine giggles again, saying "I thought that was _my_ hand."

Blaine doesn't let go, because even though he's realised that it isn't his own hand he's touching, he still hasn't quite realised just whose it is, or what that means.

Kurt doesn't let go either, because – resigned though he is to this moment staying as just that, resigned to his relationship with Blaine only ever being a series of moments tainted by his knowledge that they don't mean anything, not _really_, not to Blaine – Kurt thinks he'd rather have what little of Blaine he does right now, than none of him at all.

In the morning, Blaine is oblivious, and Kurt has placed himself as far away as possible, seated between a hungover Quinn and a drowsy Brittany.

When Blaine drops him off at home later that day, he doesn't wait for a goodbye before shutting the door. 

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><p>ii<p>

It's late and rainy November, and Kurt's been sitting in Blaine's bedroom with the boy himself for the last few hours, watching terrible science fiction movies and sharing an obscenely large bowl of toffee popcorn. It's getting later, though, and Finn's supposed to be picking him up in about fifteen minutes. The park where they're supposed to meet is about ten minutes walk away, so Kurt nudges Blaine (who fell asleep about twenty minutes before the end of 'Time Cop') on the shoulder gently, saying "I've gotta go meet Finn, s'later."

"Hmmmm?" comes the sleepy reply, before Blaine jolts awake. "What, no – don't be silly, I'll walk with you."

"Don't _you_ be silly, Blaine," Kurt protests, "it's pouring out there. There's no need for _both _of us to get wet. You stay." But of course Blaine insists because it's dark, and he knows the neighbourhood better, and he was planning to have a shower before bed anyway, so what does a little rain matter?

Eleven minutes later, when Blaine's pulled on his shoes, and Kurt's made sure he's got all of his stuff from around Blaine's room, and neither of them have had the common sense to get an umbrella, they step outside, Kurt worrying about how Finn will never forgive him if he's late, even though _Finn _isn't the one whose Alexander McQueen sweater is going to be _ruined _in this downpour.

"I have an idea," Blaine offers, his face lighting up. Kurt raises an eyebrow in question. "d'you trust me?" and Blaine's holding out his hand. Kurt stares at it for a second, considering, before nodding and lacing his fingers with Blaine's.

Before he knows it, Blaine's taking off towards the designated meeting spot (just at the bottom of the long hill beside Blaine's neighbourhood, because Finn doesn't believe that his poor old car can make the journey up in one piece), dragging Kurt along behind him. "Blaine!" Kurt shrieks, "what are you _doing? _Blaine! Stop!"

Blaine stops abruptly and without real warning, and Kurt collides full-force with his back; honestly surprised that he doesn't knock Blaine over and send them rolling down the hill instead. "Ouch," he moans to himself, and then "what was _that_, Blaine?"

Blaine turns to face Kurt. "That," he grins, Kurt not really liking the mischievous glint in his eye, "was skipping. It's fun. C'mon!" and with that he takes off again, Kurt following and this time only half-protesting.

When they reach the bottom of the hill (only two minutes late to meet Finn, surprisingly), both of them are soaked right through, hair plastered to their faces, clothes sticking to skin, and completely out of breath – neither are sure whether that's a side effect of the skipping, or the laughter, and Kurt secretly thinks it might be a little bit related to how exhausting it is to be this in love.

There it is again, Kurt thinks – he's come to live for these moments, the perfect ones, with laughter and exhaustion and affection; but no matter how many times he experiences it, the pain of looking into Blaine's eyes and seeing hesitance, rather than love, continues to be just as crushing.

He averts his eyes, choosing to stare instead at Blaine's shoes; he releases Blaine's hand, and he mumbles a quiet "see you" before turning around and getting into the waiting car.

Finn asks him "since when did you let your precious clothes get soaked in the rain?", and his only response is to turn up the radio and stare sullenly out of the window, trying to focus on the reflections of streetlights in the puddles rather than how much this _hurts._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** so this is short, and I'm sort of hesitant about posting it, because I'm not really too sure about this story to begin with, and the lack of reviews on the last chapter makes me even more nervous. But, y'know, onwards. 

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><p>iii<p>

At Rachel Berry's 18th birthday party, Kurt once again finds himself the only sober one. Blaine isn't there, this time – Rachel's birthday is in the week before Christmas, and Blaine's spending the holidays in Seattle with his grandparents (although he reassured them all, at their protests, that he'd much rather be at the party than entertaining his grandmother's rich old lady friends). Kurt's determined to enjoy himself anyway, so half-way through the evening, when the cousin of Rachel's who's been smiling at (and dancing next to) Kurt all night slides his arm around Kurt's waist, he doesn't complain. He isn't really Kurt's type – he has shaggy, mouse-coloured hair, and his arms are sort of skinny, and he's very much not Blaine – but Kurt's sort of touch-starved, and tired of _waiting _for more moments when he could be trying to _create _them.

Three songs later, and Kurt and the boy (whose name, apparently, is Marc), are grinding up against each other to a long-forgotten Britney Spears track. Puck stumbles over and yells "if you two weren't wearing clothes right now, you'd be having sex!" and Kurt merely shushes him, throwing in a remark about the astuteness of his observation, because he really thinks that this _could _be a moment. Marc leans in and kisses him, as if trying to show his agreement with Kurt's unspoken thoughts.

At some point during the night, when Marc needs to use the bathroom, he laces his fingers with Kurt's and the two of them weave in and out of the crowd of Kurt's dancing friends. Marc releases his hand in the hallway, fingertips lingering for a moment, and as the bathroom door shuts Kurt sits on the stairs, reflecting on other fingers intertwined with his, and how this should really _feel _like a moment by now.

A few more drinks for the both of them (well, really, many more drinks for Marc, because Kurt's been pouring his into Marc's glass whenever he looks away; he's long since learned that his life is easier and less full of awkward questions if he just lets his friends believe that he's drunk, too) finds Kurt straddling Marc's lap, alternately kissing him and giggling. Marc's roughly kissing Kurt's neck when teenage dream starts playing, and Kurt realises that this really _isn't _a moment. This is as far away from a moment as it is possible to be. Suddenly, he feels sick.

He pushes away from the other boy and runs into the bathroom, just managing to lock the door behind him before heaving the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. As he leans his forehead against the cool tile, tears streaming down his face, he's thankful that everyone will just assume that he's had too much to drink.

He almost wonders why this bothers him so much – after all, Santana and Brittany and Puck and Finn and, well, all of his friends, really, do stuff like this all the time. Hell, Santana and Puck have definitely done _much_ worse, and _frequently_, and he wouldn't expect to find either of them in Rachel Barbra Berry's bathroom, crying over it.

He knows why, though, really. Because he's thinking back to when Blaine bought him lunch just after confronting Karofsky that first time. He's thinking back to Blaine's words – "that kiss still didn't count, Kurt, it doesn't count until you choose it. It's not your first kiss ("or at least, one that counted, anyway") unless you wanted it to happen." He'd hoped that it would be with Blaine, of course – but even more than that, he'd always, _always, _believed that it would mean something. And tonight? It hadn't. He'd thrown away his first kiss, trying desperately to force something that should never be forced, and it just felt so, so empty.

He leaves the party without a word to anyone, and walks the five blocks home looking up at the stars – remembering the first time he'd ever realised that all he could have were moments, and trying not to think about how much he wished for even that, now.


	3. Chapter 3

iv

The day after the Rachel Berry 18th Birthday not-just-train-wreck-but-fucking-meteorite-crash-that-took-out-several-countries-and-possibly-resulted-in-apocalypse extravaganza, Kurt decides that this just can't go on. He calls Blaine.

"Hey, Kurt! It's so great that you called, I miss you guys! Are you having a good holiday? It was the party last night, right? How was that? It's so _boring _up here, I wish I-"

Kurt cuts him off mid-ramble, because usually he'd find Blaine's enthusiasm endearing, but right now he just _can't_. "Blaine, I need to talk to you," he says, aware that he probably sounds harsh, but far too tired to care about it, "and you can't interrupt, and you have to be honest, because I just need to get this over with, okay?"

"uhm, okay..." comes Blaine's startled reply.

"Blaine, I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot, and I spent half of that party with my tongue down some guy's throat," – a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line – "and I didn't even know him, and y'know how you were talking about how my first kiss, the first one that actually, really, 100% definitely counted, would be one that I chose? Well apparently I chose to throw it away."

Blaine interjects, shakily. "Kurt, why are you-"

As if there had been no interruption, Kurt continues – "and do you know _why _I did that, Blaine? Because I got _tired_ of all of these stupid, amazing, perfect moments with you, the hands intertwined and the starry nights and your guitar in the park, those moments, being ruined by the fact that they mean _nothing _to you but absolutely everything to me."

He takes a few seconds to breathe and collect his thoughts, and this time Blaine doesn't attempt to cut in. "I couldn't live in anticipation of those moments any more, Blaine, not when they just crush me every time. So I tried to prove to myself that I could enjoy myself, that I could experience things without you – that I didn't _need _to wait for something to happen when I could just _create _moments myself. But it backfired because there he was, all over me, and then teenage _fucking _dream starts playing, and I couldn't stop thinking about _you. _I love you, Blaine. I love you, and it's killing me to be lead on like this, because I just can't do anything else with my life when you're there being so perfect and... I know you're not trying to, I don't blame you, really, but I think I just need to hear you say it, that you don't feel the same way, or I won't-"

"Kurt,"

"-be able to stop pretending that maybe it is something, I won't be able to stop reading into every single thing, and I won't ever get over it, and-"

"..._Kurt, _I-"

"-I know you'll probably never want to talk to me again after this, and I'm really sorry that I've ruined our friendship so completely by being so stupidly in love with you, but I justcan't keep going on like this. I'm sorry." He inhales, feeling strangely like he just let all of that out in one breath, even though he knows, logically, that's impossible. He focuses on the breathing thing anyway, because if he doesn't think about that he'll have to go back and think about everything he just said instead, and oh, god, he does not want to do that.

"Kurt, I'm not leading you on."

"You _are, _Blaine. I know it's not intentional, I get that, but that doesn't change-"

"No, Kurt. I'm not leading you on, because I love you, too."

"You... you what?"

"I've wanted to tell you for months – I planned out so many ways to do it, this definitely wasn't one of them – but... whenever I got up the courage to, you started avoiding my gaze. You walked away just as I was about to say it _so_ many times... I started to think that you could see it in my eyes, and you were just... trying to let me down easy, y'know? Trying to stop me from making a fool of myself, or something... but, Kurt, of course I love you too. Of course I love you, how could I not?"

"That – oh, my god, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry... I thought – I thought that it was hesitance, when I- when I avoided- I thought _you _were getting ready to let _me _down easy. I thought you were trying to find a "sorry, it didn't mean anything," or an "I don't think we should do this anymore, because you clearly read too much into it", and I just couldn't deal with the humiliation, so..."

"We're idiots, aren't we?"

"Oh, completely."

And perhaps this one _shouldn't _be a moment, because it started in anger, and hurt, and it's definitely not _perfect_, because Kurt's just told the guy who loves him about kissing _someone else. _But it's okay if this one isn't a moment, because it's better than that – it's a beginning. 

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><p>v<p>

A week later, when Kurt goes to pick Blaine up from the airport, he doesn't make any romantic gestures. He doesn't bring flowers, or plan to serenade him, or even make an extra effort with his outfit (well, okay, he maybe wears his favourite scarf. For luck. But that definitely doesn't count). He doesn't try to make it into anything that it's not.

He's just _there_, and so is Blaine.

And the wheel of Blaine's suitcase sticks so they can't run towards each other in slow motion like you'd expect from a film, and they have to stop to let some impatient people pass before they can get to each other – Kurt almost trips over a small child in his haste, and Blaine almost walks face-first into an old woman carrying a hot cup of coffee – and when they finally do meet, a man in a suit shoves past them, inadvertently breaking their kiss apart too soon.

Despite all of that, though, Kurt can't help but think that this one is probably his favourite moment so far (even if Blaine does laugh at him for keeping score).


End file.
